>> i used to sell teeth whitener. >> okay. >> i'll share the sec rents later. >> thank you very much, rosa, thanks. it was an unprecedented wave of terror that struck in and around our nation's capital. >> you had 911. this is one year later. >> over 23 days, 10 people are targeted for death. >> there was always just a single shot. >> someone has been shot on our back lot. >> he's bleeding real bad. >> the victims are diverse. the motive is unknown. >> we're not sure if we had a terrorists operation. >> they were striking at the heart of the suburbs.

>> i'm goings to my fourth funeral in four days. >> people were dying, right in front of us. we can't be everywhere all the time. this without a doubt was the most intense three weeks of my career. >> it was one of the biggest man hunts in american history. the hunt for the d.c. snipers, next. ♪ it's known as the beltway, the growing metropolis that surrounds our nation's capital

encompasses portions of maryland and virginia, it's sprawl of medium and small towns, the kinds of places with indiscriminate violence is rare. for area residents, october 2nd, 2002 began quietly enough. nationally the big news was a hurricane in the gulf of mexico. >> category four hurricane -- >> and the buildup to the invasion of iraq. >> we know the awful nature of war. >> but a very different war was about to erupt. [siren sound] >> i got a call from my deputy. a 55-year-old man was killed outside the store. >> we had a gentleman who was shot in the parking lot at the shopper's food warehouse. i asked him what kind was it, did we have an argument between two people?

did we have an answer to it. >> barney forsythe was the head of major crimes. >> he said no, not really. we had a loud bang. >> it was directly the across the street from the police station. in fact the first police officers to arrive at the scene were those who heard the shot inside the police station and walked across the street. >> the victim is a 55-year-old government analyst named james d. martin. police are almost nothing to go on. >> security cameras were starting to become more popular. we were of course hoping, you know, that it was going to tell us something. unfortunately after we reviewed it, the only thing we saw was the poor man getting shot to the ground. >> we talked about the unusual nature of that particular murder. >> the thing that bothered us

was there was no obvious reason for the shooting. in montgomery county, somebody being killed with a rifle is very unusual. >> a single shot fired through a window. no one was injured. >> there were no injuries and no clues. >> we weren't sure what we had at that point. >> tonight the mystery remains. >> that evening the two shootings were still just a local story. the next morning everything changed. >> montgomery county. >> yes, ma'am, i need police and ambulance. >> okay. what's the problem. >> somebody has been shot on our back lot. he's down on the ground and he's bleeding real bad. >> we had a call for a subject to have been out mowing a lawn. >> the victim is 39-year-old sonny buchanan, a landscaper.

>> immediately we were pretty sure it was going to be related to the previous evening's shooting. >> the two crime scenes are just over four miles apart. >> we're reasonably sure that they were parked within several hundred yards of this location. they managed to site the victim and take the shot. >> 30 minutes later, the carnage continues. >> what happened here at the gas station? >> i had to fill the car up with gas. there was a gentleman filling his car, it was a taxi. and he looked at me, and i looked at him, and then i looked down for a split second just to pick up my credit card and then i heard a very loud bang. >> the shot came from up here. >> and then i looked up and the taxi driver was walking towards my car. he said to me, call an ambulance

and he collapsed. i saw a lot of blood. >> the taxi driver is 54-year-old prim walcar. the witness is an emergency room doctor. >> i realized that he was having agonal breathing. >> i started to be worried when everyone had a bullet proof vest on and i didn't have un. i remember the chief specifically told me to get any vest on. >> thank you, sir. >> we are doing everything in our power to control our emotions as we deal with this situation. the challenge is to be factual, to be accurate, to not get tunnel vision, to not go off on a tangent, not put misinformation out there.

>> montgomery police chief charles moose becomes the public face of the investigation. but behind the scenes captain barney forsythe takes the lead. >> he was the right guy in the right place at the right time. >> as we were down here there was also a call coming out, a person possibly committing suicide about a mile north of here. >> but this is no suicide. it's murder and it's less than two miles away. dead at the scene is a 34-year-old baby-sitter and housekeeper, sara ramos. passers by thought she had shot herself. >> she was sitting at a bench in a shopping center reading. >> it's another busy location, another perplexing crime scene, three fatal shootings in less than and hour in a four-mile radius.

>> we sensed they were related but knowing and proving that are two different things. the rear of this parking lot provides a very good area, take a shot, one shot, one loud shot, one fatal shot and then move away without causing a great deal of distraction. >> a witness reports seeing a white box truck fleeing the scene. it's the first material clue for investigators. >> the investigation really really took on speed right here. >> an hour and 20 minutes later, five and a half miles away, lori an lewis rivera has stopped at a self service vacuum stand to clean out her minivan. >> every day people doing everyday things usually are not the victims. >> she's the mother of a young daughter, about 25 years old.

>> just the enormity of this huge sense of waste. this child lost her mother. >> another murder, again, a single shot, two people in a box type truck with a damaged tailgate. >> so far they haven't found anybody and that's the situation as we know it out here. >> it's quiet for the next 12 hours. then, just a few blocks from the montgomery county line, one more shot shatters the night. 72-year-old pasco charlotte, a retired carpenter dies at the scene. >> montgomery county we average 20 homicides in a year and we've had five of them in the space of a 16-hour period. >> if you look at the victims from the first day they're from all different aspects, male, female, white, hispanic, black.

that tells me they're looking at random targets. they're not predetermined targets. >> this is americana, right? do they hate suburban american. >> we couldn't figure out why they were doing it. you had 911. this is one year later. at first we're not sure if we have a terrorist operation. >> there was no sense at all who was behind this, who the next victim might be, when it would stop, if it would stop. >> we didn't know what the next 16 hours were going to bring. >> the snipers started leaving notes. >> it was sort of like getting punched in the face. d we're her. to help secure retirements and protect financial futures. to help communities recover and rebuild. for companies going from garage to global. on the ground, in the air, even into space.

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>> it was really terrifying to be in an area where there's a crazy person with a gun. >> suburban maryland was living in fear. >> fear was just, i mean -- not perception of fear. this is reality fear. >> a massive manhunt is under way with still no clues as to who killed five people. >> they were mobile, willing to go anywhere at any time. >> who were they? after six murders in 27 hours, police had one common thread. >> it was a single shot and it was a very loud single shot. >> victim number seven, a 43-year-old mother of two is shot outside a second michael's craft store, more than 50 miles away from where the other

murders were clustered. she is the first victim to survive. >> is there any connection between the shooting that occurred in virginia and the ones that have occurred here in montgomery county in. >> at this point the fragments from the shooting are in the lab and the comparison test is being conducted right now. >> by the second day we had a good idea of the type of caliber. we were also able to tell that all of the shots were fired from the same one. >> they're narrowing results just by the caliber of the weapon. >> have you seen anyone may have weapons similar to this? >> we had to look at the elevation of how to round hit the body and we noticed that we did not have a high entry elevation, meaning being shot from a high angle. which led us to believe they

could be shooting from a bench location or we even thought earlier they could be shooting from a platform, maybe like a van or a truck. >> the ballistics report provoked a chilling conclusion for investigators. they weren't dealing with just any killer. this was the work of a highly motivated sniper. >> i'm a trained sniper myself. i went through sniper school. each one of these individuals was shot with one rifle round, which scared me. you realize this is not a normal investigation. we had a crisis. >> the sniper investigation revealed -- the white van or truck fleeing one of the early murder scenes began to drive the investigation. >> the box truck does have lettering, two lines of block letters on the side and the back. >> the media was all over this

story. >> the vehicle has six wheels with four wheels in the rear. >> they may have spotted two people in a white box truck with a damaged tailgate. >> the witness talked about two people in it. >> and the group think took over. >> we think it will help people, prompt their memories. >> white vans were everywhere. >> that a white van similar to the other white fan then all of the sudden there were millions of white vans. >> police are still looking for a white box truck. >> it got a life of its own that it shouldn't have gotten. >> two men inside. >> unfortunately, it was the only game in town at that point. >> lost in the hysteria was an alert put out by d.c. police after the last shooting of the previous day, october 3rd. >> the homicide detectives investigating the shooting on georgia avenue just inside the d.c. line had a description of a chevy caprice leaving the scene.

it was not a big story. it was kind of buried in the news coverage. >> the white truck theory dominated the investigation as long as media experts who came forward with profiles of the sniper. >> this has all of the markings of an all-american crime spree. this is somebody who is trying to taunt the nation. >> everyone thought it was white guys because that seemed to be the predominant serial killer motive. >> here is a guy who's going to turn out, i believe, to be a white middle-aged male. >> i would be looking for an individual who has a high degree of irritability at work. >> we're still waiting on the psychological piece from the fbi. we don't expect that it will be exact to cause us to have tunnel vision. >> be still, please!

>> the calm the public and satisfy the media and keep the facts straight, chief moose holds daily press conferences one a day, every day. >> i have to take some questions. >> early on we determined that the snipers were listening to things that we were saying. several of us feared they were actually in the background watching the press conferences. >> the question about the schools and their status tomorrow, school is going to open. that decision clearly has been made. >> there is no reason to believe that the shooter is targeting school children. >> the public had, afraid that their kids weren't safe. so we said okay we'll send police. every school in montgomery county had an officer at it. >> a 13-year-old boy shot and wounded as he arrives at his suburban maryland school. >> the eighth victim is a

student. he's critically wounded but survives. >> right over there, right over my right shoulder is where the boy was shot. >> the idea that a shooter would target an innocent child on his way to school was alarm in a way that the previous shootings had not been. >> what they're now saying is that there is a connection between the shooting here and the other ones that have really caused quite the jitters throughout the washington area. >> the school shooting occurs 70 odd miles from the previous shooting in fredericksburg, virginia. the sniper zone seems to be growing. once again witnesses report seeing a white van leaving the scene. it was a consistent detail that would nearly untrack the entire investigation. >> i think they were looking for a white man in a box truck. >> i don't think anyone was sort of expecting that they were blacks, i think. ♪

>> well, if you're two black guys in kind of a beat-up car doing this, no one would recognize you. >> only it was later that they would realize they were wrong on the crucial points. there was no box truck and the snipers were not white. [woman] you wrapped the...

[man] it's nothing but tape... [woman] it's a block. we're havin' a baby! [laughter in background]

[woman screams] are we havin' a baby? [ambient crying and laughter]

six dead, two wounded, millions terrorized. almost a week has passed since the d.c. snipers first struck and now the school attacks have elevated the stakes dramatically. >> everyone working in the district knew someone in the schools and it was kind of like where are we safe? >> even though witnesses had reported seeing a white van at the school, authorities quickly determined that the shot actually came from the adjacent woods. police find two pieces of evidence, a single spent shell casing and a disturbing communique. >> our people recovered a tarot card. it confirms that they were listening to the previous press conference. >> my words were why would someone on earth do this.

and it says it's the police, call me god, do not release to the press. >> word of the tarot card was closely guarded by the police task force but not close enough. it leaks. >> when the news media got ahold of the tarot card and the information on it, law enforcement was extremely upset. >> you want to get that information and put it out while we're still doing the investigation. >> there was some discussion in the newsroom of do we report this or not. >> i don't think there's anyone that has experienced the hindrance of the leaks in the past. we have not been thrown off track. >> they claimed they shot other people because we didn't do what they asked us to. >> deen myers shot at this manassas gas station.

>> he is the ninth victim, shot and killed while pumping gas near manassas, virginia. he was 53 years old. in a parking lot across from the scene, a police officer interviews potential witnesses. one of them is a man driving the same 12-year-old chevy caprice that had been spotted at the previous murder scene. when the police wave him on, they have no idea that they've just interviewed the sniper mastermind. john muhammad and lee malvo were joined by circumstances. malvo was just 17. >> one of the things that struck me was his devotion and commitment to john allen

muhammad who he referred to as dad. >> muhammad, a father of three was an ex-army engineer who received the normal training in marksmanship. he saw action in the first gulf war but returned home a changed man. >> desert storm flipped a switch in john muhammad to this day his ex-wife isn't sure what happened. >> i was like his spirit had been broken. he was a broken man. >> that's the man who befriended lee malvo in 2000. he met the teen while on a trip to where malvo's mother had all but abandoned him. muhammad brought malvo to taco ma, washington as his informal adopted son. >> his personality was a loving child. it is very important that one

recognize that lee did not attach to a killer. he actually attached to a loving and caring father. >> at the time muhammad was in a bitter and complicated custody battle for his own children who he had stolen away from his estranged wife. when a tacoma court gave her custody, muhammad vowed revenge. >> the children were given to his wife and he would no longer have any connection with his children. and he was outraged. >> he said you will not raise your children on my own. you have become my enemy and as my enemy i will kill you. >> did you leave him? >> totally. >> the outrage became anger and hatred fuelling an inner war

which muhammad in turn fed to young lee malvo. >> he was being conditioned to be a soldier. he was actually having lee go to sleep with taped extracts from the art of war from books talking about war and revolution and that was how he started the whole brainwashing process. >> the pair's murderous journey started in tacoma. at malvo's direction malvo shot and killed the woman who testified against muhammad at the custody hearing. >> malvo was taught not to feel. whenever he would fear and muhammad saw that there was a flinch of feelings, he told him to slap his chest and say heart

be still. after a while he didn't have to tell him heart be still because he had monsterized him. >> no one ever linked muhammad and malvo to the girl's murder. now eight months later they're driving around the nation's capital in an old chevy caprice shooting innocent citizens while everyone is looking for a white man in a white truck. >> law enforcement knew that the shooters had a distinct advantage. i think to them it was quite frustrating. they all knew more people were going to die. >> we've just received word of another shooting. >> you know you have to keep plowing through. you cannot throw your hands up and walk away and say this is too hard. >> you know as fast as they were

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as the d.c. sniper death toll mounted, the public fear grew accordingly. the attacks had completely altered everyone's daily routine. >> millions of vehicles on these roads every day. that's great video there.

look at this. white van with a ladder on top. >> certainly the public was on edge. parking your car and running into the grocery store, ducking down next to your car while you're putting gas in it. >> i'm not exaggerating. people were zigzagging through parking lot. >> who would do that? >> we didn't go to the parks, we didn't let the kids play outside the front of the house. >> you have an area around here where several million people are basically held hostage by who knows what. >> from this point forward we sit and wait. >> meanwhile the media continue to speculate about the snipers and the snipers continue to machine tore the press conferences and the media. >> it was just monstrous. >> i was being interviewed and the newscaster asked that a lot of information is that the sniper is a trained expert.

>> i said it doesn't take an expert to fire these shots. the next victim was shot in the head. >> officials confirming that a man was shot at an exxon station along route 1 here. we died shortly after that. >> kenneth bridges within a businessman from philadelphia is the tenth victim. the eighth to die. he was shot while pumping gas. >> a lot of these shootings, especially in virginia would occur right off of the interstate. one of the ideas was if we get a shooting we're going to get on the interstate and do roadblocks, just stop everybody as they come through. it was pretty drastic action, i guess a little bit like looking for a needle in a hay stack. but we needed to pull out all of the stops. >> among those stopped at one of

the roadblocks, a dark blue chevy caprice carrying none other than john muhammad and lee boyd malvo. once more the sniper car is given a pass. >> their vehicle which as queried several times by law enforcement over several days and several states was legally registered. there were no warrants out for these individuals at that point in time. >> i don't know how anyone could have stopped that vehicle and known that it was the sniper's vehicle. >> much later when the authorities finally get a look at the chevy caprice, they are stunned by what they find. the vehicle had been utilized in most of the shootings. outside it looks perfectly ordinary, inside it's anything but. >> the seat back would lift up and that's where the gun was stored. and by lifting up the back seat the shooter could crawl into the back seat, they had cut an

opening in the trunk above the license plate. >> this is the view when they pull the trigger. >> they could stick the barrel out of the trunk, fire the shot and nobody could see where the shot came from. >> at about 9:15 this evening, a female was shot in the upper body in the parking garage of the home depot at seven corners. she was pronounced dead on the scene. >> the victim is 47-year-old linda franklin, shot while she and her husband loaded packages into their car. franklin is an fbi analyst. it's the first shooting in fairfax county, virginia and takes place 50 miles from the previous shooting. a witness claims to have seen the shooter flee the scene in a white van. >> it's been determined through

further investigation that the investigation is not credible. >> but the damage is done. the sniper hot line inundated is again flooded with sights of white vans. >> i believe we got over 115,000 tips, 16,000 of those were viable leads that needed to be followed up on. almost lost among all of the phone calls are several from the sniper to the police. >> don't say anything, just listen. >> they were calling the task force, they were calling rock field city police and they also called montgomery county police. >> in one the caller says we've called three times trying to set up negotiations. we've gotten no response. people have died. the lady didn't have to die. >> i think they wanted to get a message across to us.

>> the 12th victim and third to survive is a 37-year-old musician from florida. he is shot outside a steak house in ashland, virginia. once again, a white van is seen leaving the area. >> they used that to their advantage. they were looking to find a white box truck van in proximity to their shooting. the snipers later confirmed that rather than flee, they often stayed at the crime scenes. >> they were very deliberate about that. going up and talking to law enforcement officials, taunting them in the sense that here i am, i'm the guy you're looking for. >> behind the steak house in the woods, the police find a spent shell and another note from the snipers. a four-page handwritten ransom letter. in the letter the snipers wrote if stopping the killing is more important than catching us, then you will accept our demand. you will place $10 million in a bank account.

>> i never thought money was the motive. i thought that was their arrogance to see how far they could push the government to see what they could get us to do. >> but there is a chilling postscript on the note that gets everyone's attention. >> imagine being in a position where you are responsible for the safety of your community and then somebody says your children aren't safe and they've got proof that that's true because they've shot one. >> there's no parenting guide to tell your kids everything is going to be okay.

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as the sniper crisis enters its third week, nerves in the d.c. area are frayed. frustrations mount for police and the media. >> could a lack of information imperil the public? >> i appreciate the question but i am personally insulted if you think i withhold something from you or anyone else that would keep you safe. >> after a three-day lull, the snipers strike again. conrad c.j. johnson, a 35-year-old montgomery county bus driver is shot at his first stop.

he's the 13th victim in three weeks, the tenth to die. >> mr. johnson had pulled up to this location like right directly across from us at which point he was shot and killed almost instantly. it was a single shot. we know that the shot came back from the wood line no more than 30 to 50 yards away. >> as you can see, the forward most bus up there is the one where the -- >> johnson's death brings the entire case back home to montgomery county. >> i can remember just thinking, they're back. >> police find another note in the woods. >> we knew that if we could engage them we would be that much closer to them either screwing up or making another mistake that would help us catch them. >> they did exactly what we asked them to do. they started writing us letters, they started calling. >> one of the phone calls basically told us we needed to look at a robbery that had

occurred in montgomery, alabama. >> the call it later turned out was from lee boyd malvo. was he just bragging or hoping to get caught. no one knows but it was a critical break. >> he didn't identify himself as the sniper. he says, you got to look at that. >> i called montgomery, alabama, i said, did you have a shooting at a liquor store. >> they said yeah, one individual was killed, one seriously wounded. >> the only evidence was a set of fingerprints. >> they ran it against the national database and found malvo's print. >> then around the same time we got a phone call from a man who lived in washington who said we needed to take a look at these two guys and he named the guys muhammad and malvo. the kid's nickname out here is sniper. >> and all of the sudden it all started falling into place.

the tipster says the two practice shooting at a tree stump in his back yard. atf and fbi immediately send field agents to retrieve the stump. >> we asked or people to do it low key, don't tell anybody. about an hour later, someone came in to chief moose's office and said, look at the tv. >> agents have just finished up their search. >> the helicopters and the news people were out there watching our people in this back yard in tacoma, washington. >> a federal arrest warrant has been issued for john allen muhammad. >> the end came around 1:00 a.m. at a rest stop outside of frederic, maryland. a sharp eyed motorist spotted the blue 1990 chevrolet caprice with two mean sleeping inside. >> there was a six-person assault element.

they pulled both individuals out in less than three seconds. i looked down and i saw lee boyd malvo and you could see the sweat coming down his face and this is a cold october night and you could see he was just scared. and then john muhammad was on the other side and he was more defiant. >> police lined up in a cold rain to say that after three weeks they believe they caught the snipers and found the gun. >> sir, we feel very positive about being here. we have the weapon. it is off the street. >> apprehended, john muhammad and 17-year-old john lee malvo. >> muhammad's ex-wife was stunned when she saw his face on television. >> i walked over to the screen and put my hand on it and said,

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two individuals were taken into custody. >> you can only hope this is the end of it. we don't know that yet. >> local state and federal prosecutors are meeting to discuss charges and some jurisdictional issues.

>> for the residents of washington, d.c. and the beltway, three weeks of living on edge in constant fear is over. >> everyone was so glad it was over and this mayhem had stopped. there was also a lot of confusion about who these two guys were. they weren't what people were expecting. >> the confusion is compounded by disbelief as other disturbing revelations emerge about john muhammad and lee malvo. they're eventually connected to dozens of shootings and robberies in at least five different states. >> they killed people in washington, worked their way through texas, down in louisiana and alabama, i think they were in georgia. it's not just the homicides here. >> john muhammad is clearly the mastermind but people are stunned to find out his

accomplice, lee boyd malvo, is just a 17-year-old boy. >> it was a huge sense of horror that such a young person could have been involved in such horrendous crimes. that was very shocking. >> i guess shake your head a little bit and you think, what could bring a young person to do something like this. >> it's complex for malvo. he was a teen when he met muhammad and he was in dire straits. he was suicidal, he was very unhappy with his family situation. he did not have a father figure in his life and was desperately seeking one. muhammad filled all of those needs for malvo. >> lee was told that the shootings, designed to create a society, a society of boys and girls that mr. muhammad was going to be lord over and lee would be one of his soldiers. and he really believed that.

>> he was so enamored with john muhammad that he would have done anything. and what muhammad was asking him to do was kill over and over again. >> lee boyd malvo. >> yes, sir. >> two years after the shooting lee boyd malvo was convicted on two counts of capital murder. he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. three years later he wrote from his cell, i'm still grappling with shame, guilty, remorse and my own healing if that will ever be possible. as for john allen muhammad, he too was convicted of capital murder. the sentence? death by lethal injection. his own motive for the killing spree remains a mystery.

>> all we know about muhammad's approach to these shootings is largely what other people have theorized because muhammad never really explained why it happened. there are theories that he was randomly shooting people in that area so that perhaps he could kill his ex-wife and then swoop in as the grieving ex-husband and take the children away and disappear. >> he could kill her randomly. i don't think that had anything to do with it. >> i was fearful for my life but i never thought that he could go to this length never ever. it still bothers my mind. >> yet it made some sense to you? >> because we were watching a movie. he said, i could take a small city, they would think it would be a group of people and it would only be me.

>> at 9:06 p.m. on november 10th, 2009, john allen muhammad was executed. his final meal included chicken with red sauce and strawberry cake. >> mr. muhammad was asked if he wished to make a last statement. he did not acknowledge us or make any statement whatsoever. he seemed very unemotional. >> i'm still on death row fighting. >> prior to his execution however, muhammad did speak. this short video was made after his conviction and aired on cnn in 2007. it included what seemed to be an oddly upbeat farewell. >> thank you for your patience and kindness and the sacrifice that you always made. peace and may god be with you all. thank you.

>> we will never forget, we'll never know their pain and we only wish we could have stopped this to reduce the number of victims. attempt" we don't know precisely what happened. >> oh, my god. >> he's been shot. >> get down! >> the president of the united states has been shot. >> i could see it through the viewfinder. >> even now -- >> an inch from his heart. >> he was minutes away from not making it. >> who is the shooter? >> he says, you know about that, you know about anything. >> a bizarre motive. >> he thought the relationship was real. >> he was a real severe disturbed person. >> and his crime changed history. "the shooting of ronald reagan," next.